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I wish I had seen that "feeling guilty and abandoning the escape plan" scene you mention. Instead, I was predictably caught by the first guard I encountered, which made the possession stuff feel wasteful, while also meaning I didn't get to see any character development. The scene felt like an awkward missed opportunity to me, and I'm glad some of the other routes through that section of the game were more interesting.

My favorite scene by far was the dinner date. My sister (who rarely plays games) happened to be watching while I played it, and she basically ended up taking over and walking me through everything Jodie should do to get ready, while getting progressively annoyed at me for trying to ruin things as Aiden. It was really neat to get to play as two different characters with conflicting goals. I wish the game had spent more time exploring that concept.

I thought most of the secret agent scenes were wasted, simply because most of the content they offered has already been done (and done better) by countless other games. I would have been happier if Jodie spent more time awkwardly navigating social situations, and no time hiding behind cover shooting people. Games are in a weird place now, where deciding how to prepare dinner can feel refreshing and new, but blowing up helicopters feels stale and boring.

I'd also like to mention that as much as I hate QTEs in games, I actually enjoyed the movement based ones in Beyond. I hate it when games throw a "Tap A" instruction on the screen, mostly because I stop paying attention to the action and instead focus entirely on the button prompts. There are entire minute long action sequences in Indigo Prophecy that I simply didn't see because I was too busy matching buttons. The "move your control stick in the same direction as Jodie's movement when things go into slow motion" style of QTEs was much less intrusive and encouraged me to pay attention to what was actually happening on screen. I would prefer it if QTEs went away completely, but if they must persist they should at least be done in a clever way like this.

The dinner date scene was great. Even technically. I was thinking they'll never get this to work - the timing etc - but they pulled it off. It was a hugely satisfying scene for me, and it could have turned out a lot different by the looks of things.

In less confusing news, I finished Child of Light today, and I know exactly where I stand with that game.

The art is gorgeous. The game is worth playing for the art alone. I'm a sucker for 2d parallax effects, and this game has the best I've ever seen. I hope Ubisoft starts licensing out this "UbiArt" engine for other games, because I want to see a lot more of it.

The gameplay was entirely pleasant. The game is a JRPG at heart, but it's one of the good ones that avoids all grinding. There are no random battles at all, and most non-boss battles can be avoided altogether. The turn based battle system was interesting enough to remain fun for the entire game (which is short, by RPG standards).

The game is also full of the sorts of little details that let you know it was a labor of love. For example, every bit of dialog in the game rhymes (not particularly well, perhaps, but I found it endearing).

My one major complaint is that the story was just fairy tale nonsense. It's almost always a bad sign in fiction when a story starts by announcing it's taking place within a dream. Too often writers use a dreamworld as an excuse to cram all sorts of random fantasy imagery into a world that doesn't have to make sense. Child of Light's story does exactly that. Some of the small moments between characters still manage to be touching, but the overall arc of the game is just one long string of forgettable fantasy tropes.

The lack of strong narrative really hurts Child of Light. It's a shame, because the game does everything else right.

Wow. Maybe? The more I think about Beyond, the more I like it. But it's a mess! It's a terrible, terrible mess!

Hahaha, great stuff!

Child of Light sounds interesting, I may take a look.

I have finished Fez (PS4) though in a fairly basic way - found 36 cubes. Really fantastic game, I had some issues with the 'find every door on this level and then go through them all and get lost' mechanic but it worked out well when I approached it in a structured manner.

I solved very few of the puzzles, and that is fine. The game is a magnificent achievement from Phil Fish, that is for sure.

Finally reached "the end" also yesterday.
Loved the rip-off of an rip-off. Will probably be my GOTY.
Although i switched to some 18+ Rip-Off to spice it up before getting annoyed with the simple numbers. Which made it of course harder because you had to remember what each pic stands for...

This was the arcade shooter released by Ubi last year, where you take on the role of old-timer Silas Greaves telling tall tales to a group of people in a saloon, and reliving those tales as a player.

The conceit made a standard FPS a little more interesting - "Did I say Apaches? No, I was surrounded by bandits!" as the Apaches disappear in real time and are replaced by bandits etc.

The environments were nice and the game was reasonably polished, but I was bored and trying to lower the difficulty half way through. There were several sections where you were dumped in an arena and had to fight off hordes of enemies, one in particular where the boss was outside the tiny arena and throwing sticks of dynamite in at you was very annoying. Not feeling the love for this game and feel it was very overrated but I can see the appeal.

Been wanting to play this for ages, and noticed it is one sale for 50% off on Steam. Tried the demo first (I'm not sure if it gives you more of an idea of the game, or less), and had to buy the full game. I say game- it's more of an experience. An experience I wouldn't have been too happy about paying £10 for, but at half that (and half the cost of a cinema ticket), I was very pleased with it.

I didn't see all the endings, but enough of them to consider the game finished. I can't really describe much without ruining something, but it's not everyday I "play" something which is funny, twisted, creepy and thought-provoking all at once. Highly recommended. At least play the demo- it's free, and is a whole experience in itself.

Hmm, found it mostly tedious and thought it crossed the line from arty to self indulgent. It took me three goes to finish it, while previous episodes were done in a sitting (they are v short, 2 hrs max).

Still....it redeemed itself at the end a bit, interested to see what is next.